Electoral Fraud

Posted by Phil Thane on 16 March 2017

It appears that several recently elected MPs overspent on their electoral expenses but declared that they had stayed within the limit. It is being dismissed as a technical error, a misunderstanding of the rules and their party is going to pay a £70k fine. In everyday life ignorance of the law is no defence, and in the case of MPs many of whom had previous parliamentary experience, claiming ignorance of electoral law is really not good enough. As the ruling stands, any political party that can afford to overspend on its campaign will be let off providing they spend a little bit more. This seriously disadvantages independents and smaller parties that cannot afford to be so profligate.
Members found to have broken electoral law during an election should be sacked and barred from standing in the subsequent by-election (or other by-elections) at least until the next general election.